3 Actionable Insights for Your SEO strategy
April 18, 2018
Simply stated, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the key to bringing organic traffic to your website via search engines. Expert SEO audit and analysis help us gain insight into the best ways to boost your website ranking on search engines. The majority of the Traveler’s Journey takes place online, just like most customer experience. You want people to find your website, and a solid SEO strategy is the way to make that happen. Here’s how:
Step 1: SEO Audit & Analysis
A Madden SEO Analysis gives you a comprehensive look at how your site is ranking for different keywords and phrases. We compare your site to competitors and determine opportunities for improvement. When auditing your SEO, we focus on these types of errors:
- Critical crawler issues
- Landing page speed, including mobile speed
- Missing or invalid H1 tags
- Pages with duplicate content
- Title tag issues
- Content issues
- Missing or short meta descriptions
- Broken links or missing pages
- Keyword ranking position changes
Search engines calculate how relevant your content is when compared to millions of other pages available. There are many things considered by the search engine algorithm in less than a second before it delivers results. Location, site traffic, keyword density, and authority all factor into where a site ranks on the search results page. SEO is greatly affected by broken links and 404 errors. If a search engine’s crawler spends too much time looking for content on your site, it negatively impacts your ranking.
Knowing what’s working well and where you can improve helps you focus your efforts. The key is to have realistic expectations. Unless a traveler searches for your exact brand name, odds are that your website will probably not rank #1. For example, if your site ranks 47 out of 100 or shows up on page 10 of the search results, it may be unrealistic to get to that first page without the help of paid search. Working on your “striking distance” keywords where you can move from #10 up to #6 is a reasonable goal. Focusing on moving from page two to get onto the first page is the best way to spend your time and resources.
Step 2: Make a Plan and Take Action
So you know which keywords have the biggest opportunity to improve your site’s rank on a search engine—now what? The page name is the first thing you check. As awesome as the algorithms are, they simply cannot compete with a human brain when it comes to syntax. For example, if your “Things to Do” page is called “Play”, your site may not rank as high. Using the keyword or phrase naturally throughout the copy of the page also comes into play. Evenly spread out the keyword throughout the content without sounding repetitive.
Increasing traffic is another way to make your site more appealing. Tripadvisor’s page for your destination will probably rank #1 because their overall site gets over 456 million visitors per month. High volumes of people coming to your site makes search engines want to send more people to your site. This is why Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization go hand in hand.
Another opportunity to consider is having your site linked on influencer or authoritative sites, and to use your site influence to help your partners. The algorithms notice these back links referring to your site and see that as a sign of a reputable resource.
As voice searches grow in popularity, including content that answers a specific question can boost your search ranking. For example, as we reorganized and updated content for DiscoverAtlanta.com, we answered questions consumers were asking. Atlanta CVB’s new site has four featured snippets, which are used by smart speakers to answer voice queries. Asking Alexa, Siri, or Google about affordable activities or fun things to do outdoors in Atlanta delivers insights directly from the CVB website.
Step 3: Never Stop Improving
Nurturing your SEO and continuously enhancing your website content is a must. Organic traffic doesn’t change overnight—improving your rank is a marathon, not a sprint. Keeping your website up to date and adding current information, new images, videos, and more will contribute to boosting your credibility. Search engine algorithms prefer to recommend sites that load quickly on any device, making site speed crucial to strong SEO.
Looking for more ways to raise the bar? Adding new content to your site in tandem with strong distribution tactics is important, but not just any content will do. Blog posts on your site are helpful, but their timestamp makes them irrelevant to search engines within a couple years. Using a competitive content strategy for your website, such as Amplified Storytelling, allows you to incorporate the search terms travelers are looking for and inspire audiences. Our team of experts recommend adding this type of evergreen content to your website throughout the year to keep travelers coming back to your site.
Embrace SEO
Figuring out where you stand compared to the competition, creating a solid strategy, making smart changes over time and creating relevant content will help your site rank better and appear higher in search engine results. Want more insight on how to step up your website SEO? Contact us and start a conversation with our team of experts.
